1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print system which is configured by connecting a client terminal, print server, and printing apparatus to a network and manages printing from the client terminal, a print server, a control method thereof, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an improved network environment including a low communication cost thanks to broadband communication, SaaS (Software as a Service), which provides a software function as a service via the Internet, is increasingly becoming popular. SaaS has become a business model for providing a software function as a “service” via the Internet and gaining an income as a monthly usage fee, unlike conventional “licensing” of selling packet software and earning an income. SaaS is one field of “Cloud Computing”.
Even a print system which has conventionally managed printers and print jobs on a network in a local area such as an office needs to cope with SaaS as an Internet print service.
In addition to SaaS, a thin client having only a Web browser (client which uses only server-side programs and does not use client-side programs) is expected to prevail. According to SaaS, software such as an application need not be installed in a terminal such as a personal computer functioning as a client. The introduction of a thin client is therefore very advantageous to users, considering reduction of the management cost of software distributed to a client and a measure against leakage of information because no data is saved in a client. It is also a challenge for print systems to deal with SaaS thin clients.
Printers managed by a print system generally differ from each other in functions and specifications, so the user needs to register configuration information of a printer in the server (print server) of the print system in advance. Based on the registered configuration information, the print server provides a user interface for setting print attributes by the user in printing, a function of tracking a print job till the completion of printing, and the like.
As a method of registering printer configuration information by a user, he generally directly inputs it to a user interface provided by a print system to register a printer. According to this method, the user needs to grasp all pieces of configuration information of a printer. When there are many configuration information items to be input, the input is cumbersome. Hence, a terminal manipulated by the user is sometimes provided with a program for automating registration of printer configuration information. This program provides a function of acquiring configuration information from a printer and registering it in the print server.
There is proposed a method of accessing a printer directly by a print server and acquiring printer configuration information (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-303077). There is also proposed a method of registering configuration information in a print server by a printer itself (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-280856).
However, considering a form in which services are provided via the Internet, a problem arises when applying the conventional technique in the method of registering printer configuration information in a print system.
For example, when a program running on a terminal which designates registration of printer configuration information acquires printer configuration information and registers it in a print server, software other than a Web browser does not run on a thin client terminal in the thin client environment. Thus, software on the thin client terminal cannot acquire printer configuration information to register it in the print server.
When directly acquiring printer configuration information from a print server, the print server needs to access the printer. In general, a firewall does not permit access to a local area printer from the Internet (outside the local area), so it may be impossible to acquire printer configuration information.
When providing a service via the Internet, it is essential to manage users for security. More specifically, when receiving a service provided by a print system, the user enters his user ID and password to a login dialog (screen) provided by the print system, and the print system authenticates him. Also when registering printer configuration information, the print system recognizes that an authenticated user is to register it, and permits him to use the printer. The user can use the printer immediately after registering the printer configuration information.
When the printer directly registers its configuration information in the print server, the print server cannot recognize a user who has registered it. The print server separately requires a procedure to permit the user to use the registered printer, impairing user friendliness. As another method, it is also possible to allow the user to enter authentication information such as the user ID and password to a printer, which will then register configuration information in the print server together with the entered authentication information. However, it leads to poor security to transfer authentication information such as the user ID and password temporarily to the printer and then to the print server in order to log in to the print system.